Who said: “The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it... That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. Thats what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.”

It is easy to create an interstellar radio message which can be recognized as emanating unambiguously from intelligent beings. A modulated signal (beep, beep-beep, ) comprising the numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, for example, consists exclusively of the first 12 prime numbers . A signal of this kind, based on a simple mathematical concept, could only have a biological origin. But by far the most promising method is to send pictures.

The key to SETI is to guess the type of communication that an alien society would use. The best guesses so far have been that they would use radio waves, and that they would choose a frequency based on 'universal' knowledgefor instance, the 1420 MHz hydrogen frequency. But these are assumptions formulated by the human brain. Who knows what sort of logic a superadvanced nonhuman life form might use? ... Just 150 years ago, an eyeblink in history, radio waves themselves were inconceivable, and we were thinking of lighting fires to signal the Martians.

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI, to us insiders) has so far only proved that no matter what you beam upthe Pythagorean theorem, pictures of attractive nude people, etc.the big 800 number in the sky does not return calls.

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- Carl Sagan